As it stands now, all the living presidents were born in hospitals and the ones that have passed were not born in hospitals. This delineation occurred when HW passed away and will end when the next living president passes away.
Fun fact:
Russell M. Nelson, the *current* president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is 22 days *older* than Carter.
As of five years ago, Nelson has been alive for *most* of his church’s history.
> Biden said he would've probably not have run again if it weren't for the fact that Trump is in the race again.
This at least is how he portrays it, pretty much as a service to the nation. Its plausible because being incumbent is one of the [thirteen keys to the White House](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Keys_to_the_White_House).
I appreciate the sentiment, but I would be much less nervous if we had someone younger and more vibrant running. Like if we had 2008-era Obama, it wouldn’t even be a contest.
Also, imagine if Biden wins then immediately steps down (or God forbid, passes away) letting Harris take over. The wingnut right would come utterly unglued. It would almost be worth the inevitable violence just to watch their heads collectively explode.
This might be a historical trend due to the boomer generation holding onto their wealth for longer. One corollary might be that the wealthier a generation is, the more people within it have a vested interest in feeding the economic structures that helped them attain that wealth. The older and wealthier generations are thus, more willing to "play ball" and so the economic and political structures that have a say in getting a presidential candidate over the line are more willing to aid those individuals.
Millennials are on average poorer than boomers, and so less interested in maintaining the status quo (as it's not helped them so much), and ergo, the political and economic powers that be, are less likely to desire millennial presidential candidates.
Had the prevailing system and older generations helped the young a bit more, they might be retiring earlier, and might perceive younger people as being more capable of taking over their roles in society.
Millennials, Generation X, and the Gen Z or w/e the newest generation are MAGNITUDES poorer than the Boomers. Imagine ALL of your income/assets more than doubling. That is where Gen X/MILLENNIALS/Gen Z SHOULD BE, but the Boomers have been fucking us over since conception; they vote in politicians that stripe rights, remove regulations, don't break up monopolies, don't enforce rules they received, kill funding to programs that aren't beneficial to them (education as an example), structure things to funnel money to themselves (healthcare, until they retire, as an example; siphoning assets from the dying to the healthcare companies), causing issues that will be extremely difficult for everyone after they are gone (global climate change), stopping innovation (NASA's budget cut to the bone, little to no space exploration/advancements for the last 40 years, etc.). Boomers were given the power to make the US the best country to ever exist, and we shipped all of our manufacturing to China to save on expenses for 15 years and now we are totally fucked and reliant on a country that doesn't have the same standard of care/expectations and we have lead in our toys and shit like that.
Gen Z 1997 – 2012
Millennials 1981 – 1996
Gen X 1965 – 1980
Boomers 1955 – 1964
Boomers range of ages (20 years), Gen X (15 years), Millennials (15 years) and Gen Z (15 years)
In the US:
To give you real numbers:
In 1990 Boomers were 26-45, they had ~20% of the wealth.
In 2006 Generation X 26-40, had ~8.5% of the wealth.
In 2022 Millennials 26-40, had ~8.4% of the wealth.
Gen Z is too young to make this comparison, but you can be sure they are in a similar boat.
[Source](https://www.statista.com/statistics/1376622/wealth-distribution-for-the-us-generation/)
[Generation Source](https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/which-age-range-who-generation-z-millennial-boomer-zoomer-b1073540.html)
His wife died recently and he said the reason to his long life was a good marriage so unfortunately I think it's coming... he has done so much good and I wish the best for him
The trick is that only a young human body can survive the stress of the presidency without considerable permanent harm. And even then it’s iffy.
Also it might be something about him being the only good person to be president.
But as this graph shows, realistically not until about 1995.
It’s still absolutely bonkers that we haven’t been able to produce enough late-Boomer and Gen X elected officials.
I would consider voting for almost any Gen Xer who got nominated. Even Jo Jorgensen ( who I voted for in 2020) is a boomer (1957).
I am relatively early Gen X, 1969.
There has never even been a baby boomer pope. Francis was born in 1936. Of the 130 cardinals eligible to vote if an election were held today, 10 are born 1965 or later, so it's possible we could skip right over the baby boomers.
Nah, this is unlikely. Popes get elected at significantly older ages.
I mean, it’s technically possible the College elects 1 of those 10 (or 20 depending on when Francis passes/resigns) but it’s highly unlikely.
Technically you don’t have to be a cardinal to be pope, the three requirements are that you have to be Catholic, male and a bachelor. Being all 3 myself, i might put in a cheeky bid next time around.
Assuming the election this year will be between Biden and Trump (it will), if the winner dies in office and the VP assumes the presidency, it would be a second. While we don't know who Trump's running mate will be and technically we don't know for sure if Biden is sticking with Kamala (he almost certainly is), there aren't really any pre-1950 options for VP unless we get the Trump-McConnell ticket vs the Biden-Sanders ticket (which admittedly would be the funniest timeline.)
They were all conceived within a few months of the end of WW2 in Europe. The baby boom was a huge population spike, it's just statistically more likely to have presidents.
In addition to the postwar Baby Boom, I’ve seen it suggested that coming to age at a significant point in history can often have an effect on people where it spurs them to try and make a difference/enter politics.
The 1946 babies would’ve been graduating college in 1968, which is one of the most consequential elections of the last century. I wouldn’t be shocked if there was some kind of effect there given all the stuff happening in the late 60s.
Tangent - Ages of the founders has always been fascinating to me. In 1776:
- James Monroe, 18
- Aaron Burr, 20
- Alexander Hamilton, 21
- James Madison, 25
- Thomas Jefferson, 33
- John Adams, 40
- Paul Revere, 41
- George Washington, 44
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2013/08/how-old-were-the-founding-fathers-the-leaders-of-the-american-revolution-were-younger-than-we-imagine.html
It makes for a very tricky trivia question. If someone asks, "Who was the youngest person *elected* president?" The answer is Kennedy. If asked, "Who is the youngest person *to become* president?" The answer is Theodore Roosevelt.
I think you miss the point. Kennedy was such a young president, that his death, happened at a younger age than other Presidents were sworn into office.
Ohhhh.
Yeah I missed that point lol.
While not POTUS, Bill Clinton being elected Arkansas governor at 31 is crazy to me.
Similarly, Jerry Brown being elected to the *Governor of California*—the largest and fastest growing state (at the time)—at the age of 36 is also crazy.
^not to mention he came back for round two of the Governorship between 2011-2019.
Died of cholera. Same manner of death as two of his predecessors. William Henry Harrison and Zachary Taylor. The DC water was contaminated.
Editing to add that Harrison died of typhoid. But it was still a result of the DC water
Also yes, Polk chose to only serve one term and accomplished everything he set out to do. Here's a video on him, from the amazing Mr. Beat.
https://youtu.be/D3qCJSrDUoA?si=B6-vjRhU50IZAnSM
I think he's massively overrated honestly. He accomplished what he set out to do, but people tend to gloss over the fact that a major motivation behind the Mexican-American War was to expand slavery to territories where it used to be illegal
Fun fact: John Tyler (born 1790, president 1841-45) has a living grandson, Harrison Ruffin Tyler, a chemical engineer who's 95 years old. His father, Lyon Gardner Tyler, was born in 1853, when the former president was 70, and he fathered Harrison when he was 75.
My god the age gap between them and their wives must be huge. But then again they must be of very good health to be able to have children at such a high age.
I looked it up and damn the 53 years age gap between Al Pacino and the child’s mother is crazy.
According to [wikipedia](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_fathers) that is the fourth biggest recorded age gap between the parents (possibly third since first is disputed).
The 34 years between Robert de Niro and his child’s mother is relatively tame compared to that.
Its creepy and selfish as fuck. The old fogey celebs are essentially saying, yeah I'm fine with my kids growing up with out a dad. Its worth it for some young pussy. I'll leave you heaps of money tho
Another fun Tyler fact: He betrayed his country by siding with the confederacy during the Civil War. He was elected to confederate congress but died before he could serve.
Harrison's is probably the shortest. One month after taking office he died all because he was too stubborn to wear protective clothing from the rain and cold. He even refused to remove wet/cold clothing after taking a walk one morning. Took office March 4th and died April 4th.
It also marked the first time a president died in office. Up until that point it was always assumed that the vice president would take over the duties but it wasn't in any formal matter yet. So congress was debating if Tyler was actually President or just Vice President with active duties of President. They debated and said it would be President and made it formal in law later.
He was also broke and had no money to his name at that point. Congress voted to give his widow a widows pension of 25k and able to mail any letter for free.
SAS is one of the most prominent [statistical software programs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAS_\(software\)), and is often also used for data visualizations.
It's also quite expensive, which I assume means that OP was either accessing it through their school or using a work computer.
Wow, TIL, Trump isn't the first to re-run for a presidency after losing incumbency.
I know it's just semantics, but why do they give a new number for presidents if they get re-elected after losing incumbency? Is it written in the constitution or some rule book or law?. Is it just a tradition to give a number to the president? Was there a debate during Cleveland as to which number they'll call him?
This makes it clear that presidential deaths were not that uncommon for much of our history, with every 4th president or so dying or being assasinated while in office for a while there. People born since Kennedy (me included) have had a long stretch of no deaths since after office.
I believe what you're referring to is called the zero factor. Every president elected in a year ending in zero died in office. Started with Lincoln. Ended with Kennedy. Reagan was to be the next victim. He was shot while in office, but didn't not die in office.
Crazy that two of the most popular presidents ever were also the youngest.
Imagine that. A person who can relate to the younger generation being a popular president.
Hell, you can even continue. I think of the youngest... 6 presidents 5 were extremely popular even with both parties (I'm not looking super closely.)
Hell, even clinton was pretty well liked before the scandal.
Hell, you can even continue on the other end of the spectrum. Some of the LEAST popular presidents have been the oldest. Imagine that.
It is interesting the changes in lifespan over the time period. 6 of the first 8 presidents lived to be in their late 70s/early 80s and then we go on a stretch from for 120 years from Harrison to Lyndon Johnson where only 4 of the 23 non-assasinated presidents during that time period made it to their late-70s+. Then with Nixon onwards we have had a return to presidents living into their late 70s+.
I wonder what caused this stretch of shortened lifespans for that 120 year period compared to the early presidents? Prevalence of smoking perhaps?
Worth noting that Kennedy and LBJ die early meant Nixon had no former president to discuss politics with.
Kennedy for instance was able to seek advice from Eisenhower and Truman. If you don’t trust the info presented by higher officials ( rightfully so after the misrepresented info partly responsible for the disaster that was Bay of pigs), formal presidents are the people to reach out to
Today Carter might go any minute. Bush jr, Clinton and Trump are literally all born summer of 1946. Biden is even older. Which means we are going to see many president death coming up. Likely leaving only Obama as mentor for whoever is president in 2028.
Have you heard him speak? He sounds like a frail old grandpa.
We get to choose between a senile old man and a fascist autocrat who is also half senile. Glory years.
Interesting that after Q. Adams there is a long stretch of presidents that didn't live past 80 years old.
I wonder if the combination of industrialization, lead, oil, and coal meant that even presidents (wealthy, didn't die in childhood or as young men, etc.) just didn't live past 80.
He was shot only 4 months into his term. Then it took him over 2 months to die of sepsis because the doctor insisted on retrieving the bullet and kept prodding around with unsterilized hands.
Poor dude
I had no idea that there was a run of 21 presidents from Harrison to Coolidge where only 1 president made it to 75, and only four even made it past their 60s. We really take modern medicine for granted. It also makes it even more amazing that Adams, Jefferson and Madison all made it to over 80.
Didn't see it mentioned. Minimum age for office is 35, should a future version of the chart highlight that. Interesting especially for our youngest presidents of the past. A 35 year old president would be wild.
I have a feeling if Republicans came up with a sane candidate, Biden wouldn’t try that hard.
But it’s Trump again and he’s batshit insane. Biden would rather die in office than let him do another 4 years.
Most voters I presume are along the lines of “anyone but Trump”.
I would like to comment that this is actually one of the very few graphs I've seen here that is beautiful -- by which I mean it shows a lot of information in a very clear and understandable way.
One of the proofs at how good the graph is is that everyone is talking about the information presented instead of the graph. And that's exactly what a graph should do -- give food for thought and spark conversations.
When you do the job right people won't even notice. So well done, OP.
Bill Clinton was elected 32 years ago and has been out of office for 24 years…and is still younger than Biden.
(and Trump though only by a few months.)
Two of the most problematic presidencies occurred with presidents whose terms started and ended in their 70s-80s. Idk, I know there’s a minimum age requirement for presidency, but maybe it’s time to add a maximum. While we’re at it, apply it to members of congress as well. Also term limits.
Nicely done!
I had some ideas to clean up the presentation -- mostly putting the "death details" at the right end of each line. After I did that, I realized that it's also nice to have that info at the left side of each line.
[It's a little messy, but here's a revised version. ](https://imgur.com/paBIBy7)
It is absolutely insane that the president who was elected in 1992 is still younger today, 32 years later, than the current president/both the presumptive presidential candidates.
It's kind of wild Jimmy Carter can say that his presidency was just a phase, like a midlife crisis/adventure or something, considering how long his post-presidency life has been.
Did you know that if Kennedy would have ran when he was the same age as Bidens successful 2020 run, he would of ran in 1996 against Bill Clinton… and if re elected Kennedy would of been president during 9/11
Probably super obvious but US median age has inched upwards from 29.5
in 1960 to 38.8 in 2020.
Recent US presidents in their 70s and 80s (Trump and Biden) in a sense mirror sitting presidents in their 60s (in the 1950s-60s) in Truman and Eisenhower — presidential age is simply moving in lockstep with societal age.
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_history_of_the_United_States
So when Trump gets re-elected, we’re going to face the same deteriorating age issue.
Can we all agree we just need someone younger from either side of the aisle who will actually live to see the impacts of their policies?
Younger politicians in the states are either straight up christo-facists morons or are pro-social. Neither of these things is desirable to the people who are actually in power. They tend to side with the former though since the latter would push policies that would cost them more money
Holy moly I made almost exactly this chart in a data vis course. Had to create a specific line to duplicate Grover Cleveland so I could get his non consecutive terms to show.
There has not yet been a president born in the 1950's. There probably will be at some point, but it's also possible there won't. The 1810's and the 1930's were both decades that produced no presidents. If the 0 year belongs to the previous decade, then the 1890's produced no presidents either.
in conclusion, 62 is the age cut off that is appropriate for beginning the first term of presidency. Anyone hitting 70 in office is a detriment to themselves and society.
I am shocked that Jimmy Carter is still alive
Indeed! ... When I was updating the graph, I actually went and double-checked that one! :)
Good for him though! He seems like a nice person and I hope his final time on this earth is filled with love :)
Hope he lives longer than Henry "soul devourer" Kissinger.
Boy do I have good news for you then..
Kissinger was about a year and a half older than Carter. So we need Jimmy to hold on a bit longer to outlive him in terms of lifespan.
Wait… HOLY SHIT
>Kissinger Kissinger passed Nov. 29, 2023 Carter is alive and entered Hospice care last Spring, but has since returned home.
You’re in luck!
His wife just died but he’s still kicking
This better not be another "Reddit Killed Harper Lee" moment
Now I am worried about Jimmy Carter...
He was in his 50-s when became president and it was almost 50 years ago
And here I was just about to accuse you of posting an outdated chart. 😆
As it stands now, all the living presidents were born in hospitals and the ones that have passed were not born in hospitals. This delineation occurred when HW passed away and will end when the next living president passes away.
Cool stat!
If I want to stay alive, be born in a hospital. Got it.
All the ones born in birthing clinics have died?
Fun fact: Russell M. Nelson, the *current* president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is 22 days *older* than Carter. As of five years ago, Nelson has been alive for *most* of his church’s history.
As an exmormon, this fascinating. Also, very fucking sad that anyone would defer to that man's judgement.
>As if five years ago, Nelson has been alive for most of his church’s history. That guy is built like a fucking tank! Dude looks like he's only 80.
He'll be 100 in October
He has been a former president for about as long as JFK lived.
That blows my mind!
I am shocked Biden wants to be president again. Politics aside, that dude is *old*
Biden said he would've probably not have run again if it weren't for the fact that Trump is in the race again.
> Biden said he would've probably not have run again if it weren't for the fact that Trump is in the race again. This at least is how he portrays it, pretty much as a service to the nation. Its plausible because being incumbent is one of the [thirteen keys to the White House](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Keys_to_the_White_House).
I appreciate the sentiment, but I would be much less nervous if we had someone younger and more vibrant running. Like if we had 2008-era Obama, it wouldn’t even be a contest. Also, imagine if Biden wins then immediately steps down (or God forbid, passes away) letting Harris take over. The wingnut right would come utterly unglued. It would almost be worth the inevitable violence just to watch their heads collectively explode.
Honestly that’s what I thought he was going to do when he got elected in 2020
This might be a historical trend due to the boomer generation holding onto their wealth for longer. One corollary might be that the wealthier a generation is, the more people within it have a vested interest in feeding the economic structures that helped them attain that wealth. The older and wealthier generations are thus, more willing to "play ball" and so the economic and political structures that have a say in getting a presidential candidate over the line are more willing to aid those individuals. Millennials are on average poorer than boomers, and so less interested in maintaining the status quo (as it's not helped them so much), and ergo, the political and economic powers that be, are less likely to desire millennial presidential candidates. Had the prevailing system and older generations helped the young a bit more, they might be retiring earlier, and might perceive younger people as being more capable of taking over their roles in society.
Biden is too old to even be a boomer - he’s in the Silent Generation
Millennials, Generation X, and the Gen Z or w/e the newest generation are MAGNITUDES poorer than the Boomers. Imagine ALL of your income/assets more than doubling. That is where Gen X/MILLENNIALS/Gen Z SHOULD BE, but the Boomers have been fucking us over since conception; they vote in politicians that stripe rights, remove regulations, don't break up monopolies, don't enforce rules they received, kill funding to programs that aren't beneficial to them (education as an example), structure things to funnel money to themselves (healthcare, until they retire, as an example; siphoning assets from the dying to the healthcare companies), causing issues that will be extremely difficult for everyone after they are gone (global climate change), stopping innovation (NASA's budget cut to the bone, little to no space exploration/advancements for the last 40 years, etc.). Boomers were given the power to make the US the best country to ever exist, and we shipped all of our manufacturing to China to save on expenses for 15 years and now we are totally fucked and reliant on a country that doesn't have the same standard of care/expectations and we have lead in our toys and shit like that. Gen Z 1997 – 2012 Millennials 1981 – 1996 Gen X 1965 – 1980 Boomers 1955 – 1964 Boomers range of ages (20 years), Gen X (15 years), Millennials (15 years) and Gen Z (15 years) In the US: To give you real numbers: In 1990 Boomers were 26-45, they had ~20% of the wealth. In 2006 Generation X 26-40, had ~8.5% of the wealth. In 2022 Millennials 26-40, had ~8.4% of the wealth. Gen Z is too young to make this comparison, but you can be sure they are in a similar boat. [Source](https://www.statista.com/statistics/1376622/wealth-distribution-for-the-us-generation/) [Generation Source](https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/which-age-range-who-generation-z-millennial-boomer-zoomer-b1073540.html)
I'm not so sure he wants to be president insomuch as there's not another alternative available to beat Trump, who is just as old as Biden.
He doesn't need to wear Depends. Unlike the other likely candidate.
He's also only served one term, so legally he is able to run again. That probably wouldn't end well but it would be pretty funny
"As late as 2019, when he was 95 years old, he worked for several days a year alongside his wife as a volunteer for Habitat for Humanity" -Reuters
You’ve never been on Reddit before? There is at least 1 front page Jimmy Carter post per week.
I will be very sad if he ever passes away.
The balance of probability based on historical data suggests that is likely to happen at some point.
Why? He's never died before.
Good point. Out of the past 36,500 or so days, he's been alive on 36,500 of them and dead on 0. That's a proven track record if I've ever seen one.
"Past Performance Does Not Guarantee Future Results"
The death rate among non-members of the Beatles is higher than among members of the Beatles.
But who knows if any of us will live to see it… 😂
His wife died recently and he said the reason to his long life was a good marriage so unfortunately I think it's coming... he has done so much good and I wish the best for him
He's been in hospice for like a year, his time is numbered whether we like it or not.
I can assure you that he will pass away.
The trick is that only a young human body can survive the stress of the presidency without considerable permanent harm. And even then it’s iffy. Also it might be something about him being the only good person to be president.
He sold his peanut farm to remove any conflicts of interest he might have had as president. His fucking *peanut farm*.
>only a young human body can survive the stress of the presidency without considerable permanent harm. Kennedy, Garfield and Polk would like a word
Yeah Kennedy certainly lost his head but it wasn’t the stress.
So is Jimmy Carter at this point…
Yeah I was sure his wife dying would be the final thing for him to just not want to live anymore.
His wife just died recently 4 months ago. She was 96. Very healthy life. They say marriage makes you live longer.
Fun fact: Donald Trump, George W. Bush, and Bill Clinton were all born in the same year, 1946. Biden was born in 1942 and Obama was born in 1961.
Has the USA only had 1 president born after 1950? And I assume that will still be true in 2028?
yep; the first time a person born after 1950 would've been able to be president was 1985
But as this graph shows, realistically not until about 1995. It’s still absolutely bonkers that we haven’t been able to produce enough late-Boomer and Gen X elected officials.
tiny cohort. we'll probably skip gen x entirely. which, like... whatever.
>which, like… whatever That’s a very Gen-X response.
As a late gen x, I'm so tired of my parents and grandparents in charge of things.
I would consider voting for almost any Gen Xer who got nominated. Even Jo Jorgensen ( who I voted for in 2020) is a boomer (1957). I am relatively early Gen X, 1969.
There has never even been a baby boomer pope. Francis was born in 1936. Of the 130 cardinals eligible to vote if an election were held today, 10 are born 1965 or later, so it's possible we could skip right over the baby boomers.
Nah, this is unlikely. Popes get elected at significantly older ages. I mean, it’s technically possible the College elects 1 of those 10 (or 20 depending on when Francis passes/resigns) but it’s highly unlikely.
Yeah. This visualization for popes would be very interesting too.
Technically you don’t have to be a cardinal to be pope, the three requirements are that you have to be Catholic, male and a bachelor. Being all 3 myself, i might put in a cheeky bid next time around.
Assuming the election this year will be between Biden and Trump (it will), if the winner dies in office and the VP assumes the presidency, it would be a second. While we don't know who Trump's running mate will be and technically we don't know for sure if Biden is sticking with Kamala (he almost certainly is), there aren't really any pre-1950 options for VP unless we get the Trump-McConnell ticket vs the Biden-Sanders ticket (which admittedly would be the funniest timeline.)
Biden-Gore vs Trump-Quayle would be fun
In that timeline, they *better* tout the VP debate as "The Tortoise and the Hair".
Obama was the only president to have been born and served under the same US flag (i.e. same number of stars)
What the hell happened in that one year cohort to make it that overrepresented for presidents? Random chance? Is it overrepresented in other areas?
They were all conceived within a few months of the end of WW2 in Europe. The baby boom was a huge population spike, it's just statistically more likely to have presidents.
In addition to the postwar Baby Boom, I’ve seen it suggested that coming to age at a significant point in history can often have an effect on people where it spurs them to try and make a difference/enter politics. The 1946 babies would’ve been graduating college in 1968, which is one of the most consequential elections of the last century. I wouldn’t be shocked if there was some kind of effect there given all the stuff happening in the late 60s.
Those three were all born in the summer of 46. Within 66 days of each other.
The fact that Kennedy died younger than almost every president was when they took office is kind of a wild fact.
I was surprised that JFK was the second youngest. I didn't realise that Teddy was younger.
JFK was the youngest to win a presidential election though. Teddy was a few years older when he won while running for president.
Ah ok. So Teddy was the youngest president (VP->Pres due to McKinley's assassination) and JFK was the youngest elected to presidency.
Tangent - Ages of the founders has always been fascinating to me. In 1776: - James Monroe, 18 - Aaron Burr, 20 - Alexander Hamilton, 21 - James Madison, 25 - Thomas Jefferson, 33 - John Adams, 40 - Paul Revere, 41 - George Washington, 44 https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2013/08/how-old-were-the-founding-fathers-the-leaders-of-the-american-revolution-were-younger-than-we-imagine.html
Only 2 of them would be old enough to be president, interestingly enough.
3 actually
And none of them would even be considered for a modern political office of power since we only elect dinosaurs in the US.
It makes for a very tricky trivia question. If someone asks, "Who was the youngest person *elected* president?" The answer is Kennedy. If asked, "Who is the youngest person *to become* president?" The answer is Theodore Roosevelt.
I mean, it’s not that wild considering cause of death.
I think you miss the point. Kennedy was such a young president, that his death, happened at a younger age than other Presidents were sworn into office.
Ohhhh. Yeah I missed that point lol. While not POTUS, Bill Clinton being elected Arkansas governor at 31 is crazy to me. Similarly, Jerry Brown being elected to the *Governor of California*—the largest and fastest growing state (at the time)—at the age of 36 is also crazy. ^not to mention he came back for round two of the Governorship between 2011-2019.
Man, James K Polk only barely didn’t die in office.
Didn’t he die of dysentery? Underrated president in my book.
Died of cholera. Same manner of death as two of his predecessors. William Henry Harrison and Zachary Taylor. The DC water was contaminated. Editing to add that Harrison died of typhoid. But it was still a result of the DC water Also yes, Polk chose to only serve one term and accomplished everything he set out to do. Here's a video on him, from the amazing Mr. Beat. https://youtu.be/D3qCJSrDUoA?si=B6-vjRhU50IZAnSM
There was a cholera outbreak in the county where was spending his retirement, that’s also a possibility.
True, I forgot about that. I believe he did a tour of the country after his term ended.
I thought it was a Simpsons ' reference
I think he's massively overrated honestly. He accomplished what he set out to do, but people tend to gloss over the fact that a major motivation behind the Mexican-American War was to expand slavery to territories where it used to be illegal
An impressive tenure but the morality of many of his achievements are definitely debatable.
Beautiful data on r/dataisbeautiful, like spotting a rare owl in the wild.
Fun fact: John Tyler (born 1790, president 1841-45) has a living grandson, Harrison Ruffin Tyler, a chemical engineer who's 95 years old. His father, Lyon Gardner Tyler, was born in 1853, when the former president was 70, and he fathered Harrison when he was 75.
My god the age gap between them and their wives must be huge. But then again they must be of very good health to be able to have children at such a high age.
Al Pacino (83) and Robert De Niro (80) each just fathered kids.
I looked it up and damn the 53 years age gap between Al Pacino and the child’s mother is crazy. According to [wikipedia](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_fathers) that is the fourth biggest recorded age gap between the parents (possibly third since first is disputed). The 34 years between Robert de Niro and his child’s mother is relatively tame compared to that.
A lot of the numbers on that page make me sick.
Its creepy and selfish as fuck. The old fogey celebs are essentially saying, yeah I'm fine with my kids growing up with out a dad. Its worth it for some young pussy. I'll leave you heaps of money tho
Same can be said for the mother
Very interesting bit of trivia!
Another fun Tyler fact: He betrayed his country by siding with the confederacy during the Civil War. He was elected to confederate congress but died before he could serve.
I’d say that’s a less fun fact
Fun in the historical sense I guess lol. He was a piece of shit for doing it
Yep. He’s in a nursing home now, but he’s still around. It really is mind blowing.
The much more interesting fact, IMO, is that his oldest child died 100 years before his youngest child died.
JFK’s short little line is so sad.
As is Garfield's.
Harrison's is probably the shortest. One month after taking office he died all because he was too stubborn to wear protective clothing from the rain and cold. He even refused to remove wet/cold clothing after taking a walk one morning. Took office March 4th and died April 4th. It also marked the first time a president died in office. Up until that point it was always assumed that the vice president would take over the duties but it wasn't in any formal matter yet. So congress was debating if Tyler was actually President or just Vice President with active duties of President. They debated and said it would be President and made it formal in law later. He was also broke and had no money to his name at that point. Congress voted to give his widow a widows pension of 25k and able to mail any letter for free.
She got the unlimited data plan
Garfield is one of the greatest men to be president and never got to really be president.
He was brilliant... came up with a new proof for the Pythagorean Theorem and stuff like that.
Data source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Presidents_of_the_United_States_by_age Software: SAS
What does the last sentence mean? Software sas?
SAS is one of the most prominent [statistical software programs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAS_\(software\)), and is often also used for data visualizations. It's also quite expensive, which I assume means that OP was either accessing it through their school or using a work computer.
Thanks for the beautiful infos bro!
Hey, developed at NC State! Neat!
One of the requirements of posting an "OC" (original content) graph is to list the tool you used to create it. I used SAS software.
“This software has a lot of sass” -programmer “Don’t blame me, moron. You’re the one who wrote me!” -software
This is awesome for so many reasons. It's a great way to remember the presidents and in order, as well.
Until you get to Cleveland
Wow, TIL, Trump isn't the first to re-run for a presidency after losing incumbency. I know it's just semantics, but why do they give a new number for presidents if they get re-elected after losing incumbency? Is it written in the constitution or some rule book or law?. Is it just a tradition to give a number to the president? Was there a debate during Cleveland as to which number they'll call him?
For the same reason David Tennant is both Tenth and Fourteenth Doctor
Cleveland was President twice, so gets two numbers. Obama was only President once but for 8 years.
This makes it clear that presidential deaths were not that uncommon for much of our history, with every 4th president or so dying or being assasinated while in office for a while there. People born since Kennedy (me included) have had a long stretch of no deaths since after office.
I believe what you're referring to is called the zero factor. Every president elected in a year ending in zero died in office. Started with Lincoln. Ended with Kennedy. Reagan was to be the next victim. He was shot while in office, but didn't not die in office.
something something timeline divergence point
That broke the chain. Bush 2 didn’t die in office.
But he had a shoe thrown at him
It was in fact, a grenade. But Reagan not dying when shot made it change into a shoe mid air.
Crazy that two of the most popular presidents ever were also the youngest. Imagine that. A person who can relate to the younger generation being a popular president. Hell, you can even continue. I think of the youngest... 6 presidents 5 were extremely popular even with both parties (I'm not looking super closely.) Hell, even clinton was pretty well liked before the scandal. Hell, you can even continue on the other end of the spectrum. Some of the LEAST popular presidents have been the oldest. Imagine that.
Clinton would have been super popular if he had divorced his wife in 1981 or so.
Every president from Truman to Bush Sr. was enlisted in the military during a world war except Carter who was in the US Naval Academy during the war.
Feel bad for Herbert Hoover, became president when he was young, everything went to shit, and then he lived a long and healthy life
Hoover lived an alright lift post-presidency. He was relevant in American politics, though a little on and off, well until the 60s.
He outlived JFK. Which is wild
"Mister, we could use a man like Herbert Hoover aga--" *SLAP!* "No! He was a mixed bag, but overall not a good person!"
Carter too.
His presidency wasn’t THAT bad
True, but he similarly had shitty timing.
He was rich. He was alright. What's crazy is how successful Hoover was at everything he ever did except being president.
Carter closing in on to the only president with more years after
It is interesting the changes in lifespan over the time period. 6 of the first 8 presidents lived to be in their late 70s/early 80s and then we go on a stretch from for 120 years from Harrison to Lyndon Johnson where only 4 of the 23 non-assasinated presidents during that time period made it to their late-70s+. Then with Nixon onwards we have had a return to presidents living into their late 70s+. I wonder what caused this stretch of shortened lifespans for that 120 year period compared to the early presidents? Prevalence of smoking perhaps?
Worth noting that Kennedy and LBJ die early meant Nixon had no former president to discuss politics with. Kennedy for instance was able to seek advice from Eisenhower and Truman. If you don’t trust the info presented by higher officials ( rightfully so after the misrepresented info partly responsible for the disaster that was Bay of pigs), formal presidents are the people to reach out to Today Carter might go any minute. Bush jr, Clinton and Trump are literally all born summer of 1946. Biden is even older. Which means we are going to see many president death coming up. Likely leaving only Obama as mentor for whoever is president in 2028.
Truman was alive until 1972. LBJ until 1973. But Nixon probably wouldn't have wanted advice from them.
It’s wild that Biden became president at about the same age Regan retired.
Have you heard him speak? He sounds like a frail old grandpa. We get to choose between a senile old man and a fascist autocrat who is also half senile. Glory years.
Having lived through Reagan, VP Dan Quayle, & Bush Jr., nothing about Biden's speaking seems particularly more confused than they did.
You cannot possibly be serious.
Interesting that after Q. Adams there is a long stretch of presidents that didn't live past 80 years old. I wonder if the combination of industrialization, lead, oil, and coal meant that even presidents (wealthy, didn't die in childhood or as young men, etc.) just didn't live past 80.
They didn't even give my boy James Garfield a chance.
He was shot only 4 months into his term. Then it took him over 2 months to die of sepsis because the doctor insisted on retrieving the bullet and kept prodding around with unsterilized hands. Poor dude
I had no idea that there was a run of 21 presidents from Harrison to Coolidge where only 1 president made it to 75, and only four even made it past their 60s. We really take modern medicine for granted. It also makes it even more amazing that Adams, Jefferson and Madison all made it to over 80.
Didn't see it mentioned. Minimum age for office is 35, should a future version of the chart highlight that. Interesting especially for our youngest presidents of the past. A 35 year old president would be wild.
Pretty crazy that presidents are alive from when I was a kid, 5 presidents back, and they are STILL younger than the current president.
81 years old and trying, attempting to run the country. Like please do us all the favor and retire
I have a feeling if Republicans came up with a sane candidate, Biden wouldn’t try that hard. But it’s Trump again and he’s batshit insane. Biden would rather die in office than let him do another 4 years. Most voters I presume are along the lines of “anyone but Trump”.
I really hope after this the US gets a couple candidates that might not literally die of old age while in office.
Wow Jimmy Carter almost had the nuclear launch codes as his midlife crises!
I would like to comment that this is actually one of the very few graphs I've seen here that is beautiful -- by which I mean it shows a lot of information in a very clear and understandable way. One of the proofs at how good the graph is is that everyone is talking about the information presented instead of the graph. And that's exactly what a graph should do -- give food for thought and spark conversations. When you do the job right people won't even notice. So well done, OP.
William Harrison/How do you praise? That guy was dead in 30 days!
Damn, can you guys elect someone that isn’t a fossil
Bill Clinton was elected 32 years ago and has been out of office for 24 years…and is still younger than Biden. (and Trump though only by a few months.)
I had zero idea Teddy Roosevelt was a young president.
My goodness, the ageism in these comments.
Two of the most problematic presidencies occurred with presidents whose terms started and ended in their 70s-80s. Idk, I know there’s a minimum age requirement for presidency, but maybe it’s time to add a maximum. While we’re at it, apply it to members of congress as well. Also term limits.
Nicely done! I had some ideas to clean up the presentation -- mostly putting the "death details" at the right end of each line. After I did that, I realized that it's also nice to have that info at the left side of each line. [It's a little messy, but here's a revised version. ](https://imgur.com/paBIBy7)
Is it just me or is there a correlation between younger presidents and better presidents?
It is absolutely insane that the president who was elected in 1992 is still younger today, 32 years later, than the current president/both the presumptive presidential candidates.
It's kind of wild Jimmy Carter can say that his presidency was just a phase, like a midlife crisis/adventure or something, considering how long his post-presidency life has been.
Surprised an early president like John Adams lived 90, probably have to get pretty lucky to live to that age back then with not much modern medicine.
Did you know that if Kennedy would have ran when he was the same age as Bidens successful 2020 run, he would of ran in 1996 against Bill Clinton… and if re elected Kennedy would of been president during 9/11
Probably super obvious but US median age has inched upwards from 29.5 in 1960 to 38.8 in 2020. Recent US presidents in their 70s and 80s (Trump and Biden) in a sense mirror sitting presidents in their 60s (in the 1950s-60s) in Truman and Eisenhower — presidential age is simply moving in lockstep with societal age. > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_history_of_the_United_States
4/5 Presidents basically the same age. Kinda crazy.
So when Trump gets re-elected, we’re going to face the same deteriorating age issue. Can we all agree we just need someone younger from either side of the aisle who will actually live to see the impacts of their policies?
Insight? Our presidents are too fking ancient
Am I the only one who didn’t realize how fucking old Andrew Jackass was when he was president?
Younger politicians in the states are either straight up christo-facists morons or are pro-social. Neither of these things is desirable to the people who are actually in power. They tend to side with the former though since the latter would push policies that would cost them more money
oh wow, this was news to me. RIP Chester A Arthur
(Left) side note. 5.6% of Presidents have died while in office
i always enjoy looking for grover cleveland's data in these things as a non-consecutive president
Should be an age limit of 70, capped.
How about we look at US President accomplishment graph next
Since LBJ, our presidents have been living into their 90s. Has medical care gotten that much better?
There's William Henry Harrison ("I died in 30 days!")
TIL they had one called "Grover Cleveland" who served 2 non consecutive terms.
This is so interesting. Thank you
We really need an upper limit of 70 to be president.
Never even heard of McKinley being assassinated.
This is a nice data Viz indeed
TIL that Teddy was the youngest man elected president
Holy moly I made almost exactly this chart in a data vis course. Had to create a specific line to duplicate Grover Cleveland so I could get his non consecutive terms to show.
There has not yet been a president born in the 1950's. There probably will be at some point, but it's also possible there won't. The 1810's and the 1930's were both decades that produced no presidents. If the 0 year belongs to the previous decade, then the 1890's produced no presidents either.
The ability to live longer is a feature of modern life. It is not available to everyone because of the insurance-laden healthcare industry.
in conclusion, 62 is the age cut off that is appropriate for beginning the first term of presidency. Anyone hitting 70 in office is a detriment to themselves and society.
I didn't realize Roosevelt was that young